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I need a monster, preferably a flying one, that can be used by an army to fight a modern Air Force. The modern air force here is equivalent to the USAF, with jet fighters and B-52 bombers and all. Its numbers match the total strenght of the USAF, as well as the jets the Navy and army have. Helicopters are included.

What the "fantasy army" needs is a bunch of creatures that can match the functions of the modern AF, and can fight and defeat it.

Is there any such creature(s)? It should be something that can be tamed, or at least pointed towards what you want destroyed.

The primary problems I can see are these:

  1. Modern Aircraft have sensors that can see hundreds of kloms away and hit it more precisely than William Tell did an apple.
  2. The destructive power of a missile is hard to exaggerate, even if we remove nukes. Which is not a part of the question, and nukes will def be in play.
  3. Speed. Modern jets can casually fly faster than sound, and are very capable of fighting in those speeds with the help of computers. Which brings us to the final part....
  4. Computers. The data processing capacity of a modern computer system, once allied with the rest of the systems, allows the jet to function with a precision most monsters cannot even fathom.

With all that said and done, how can it be matched anyway? Can it?

KRyan
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Thales
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    We will need some more info before this question will work here, assuming it will. To begin, which game system are you asking about? (and I'm assuming the game system has context such that this isn't pure idea gen, in which case you'll be better served by a traditional forum) – Someone_Evil Feb 13 '22 at 18:32
  • I think that this question would be answerable if we restrict it to DnD 3.5 and d20 Modern. – nick012000 Feb 13 '22 at 22:32
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    does D20 modern offer damage values for a 20mm rotary cannon, hellfire missiles or 70 kilotons to 1 megaton B43 as they would be found on 1960s and 1970s fighter planes? – Trish Feb 13 '22 at 22:52
  • @nick012000 I found the (official!) d20 Modern Weapons Locker, which contains a Pirat (14.5 mm, Fully Automatic, 2d12) as the largest caliber machine gun... With D20 modern handling automatic firearms as "Anything in this area is DC10, no matter what armor it has" that seems like a baseline to try to model it... however, the Utyos of the same damage (2d12) only fires 600 rounds a minute, while the 20mm M61 Vulcan fires 6000 per minute, making me believe we should estimate about 20d20 to reflect the much heavier, faster and more bullets per round... – Trish Feb 13 '22 at 23:14
  • if one would compare with the (official!) values for an M2A2 Bradley, the 25mm that's in there is given as a 4d12 Automatic MG, but only fires about 200 to 500 bpm. The Abrams is given with 10d12 from the tank cannon. – Trish Feb 13 '22 at 23:45
  • 1 pound of TNT is 4d6 in d20 modern, and the rules there say it scales linearly (2 pounds=8d6 ~ 1 kg), so you are looking at 560k d6 for the 70 kilotons... Which is technically enough to kill Cthulhu who has only 42d12 + 378 HP under Call of Cthulhu d20 – Trish Feb 13 '22 at 23:50
  • @Trish There are rules for nuclear weapons in the spaceship section of d20 Future, and IIRC there was also a high-level monster that detonates in a nuclear explosion when killed in one of the d20 Modern monster books. – nick012000 Feb 14 '22 at 02:34
  • @ObliviousSage Sounds like you have the start of an answer there, don't leave it in the comments! –  Feb 14 '22 at 05:10
  • DnD. It's given in the tags, I believe. – Thales Feb 14 '22 at 17:09
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    There are 8 to 20 versions of D&D not counting d20 Modern, CoC d20, d20 Future and other d20 games. – Trish Feb 14 '22 at 17:24
  • @Chemus: Don't answer in comments. You should wait until the relevant edition is clarified, then post it as an answer instead if it's still relevant. – V2Blast Feb 14 '22 at 21:14
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    @Thales The tag you currently have, "dungeons-and-dragons" is described as "For questions relating to Dungeons & Dragons as a whole, or to multiple versions of Dungeons & Dragons. If your question is about a specific version of D&D, you probably should tag it with the corresponding tag instead". Sufficient users have determined that you will get better answers to this by specifying what editions you are interested in; doing so will likely get your question re-opened. – Kirt Feb 14 '22 at 22:20

4 Answers4

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Fighting the planes themselves is a fool's errand

Trying to come up with a monster that can contend with the destructive capability of a single jet or bomber is already difficult; ones that can match the numbers and coordination of an entire service branch or more is a fool's errand.

Fortunately, clever strategists don't attack where their enemies are strong; they attack where their enemies are weak. And the modern US military's Achilles' heel is its formal command structure funneling up to ever fewer individuals and ultimately a single commander-in-chief. That is what you need to attack.

There are surely better creatures for this, but off the top of my head I would nominate a company of succubi (I will use their 5e stats, but the features are roughly common across editions). As an action, they can enter or leave the Ethereal Plane, allowing them easy access to even a heavily-guarded command target. Once on-site, their Shapechanging ability will allow them to assume the form of someone close to their target (they will need to be prepared with appropriate clothes and effects beforehand). Finally, when they are in position, their DC15 Wis save Charm effect will convert the target into an asset. Since a successful save grants immunity for a day, several will need to be assigned to each target to make sure the charm takes. Since they may issue commands telepathically, even unconverted guards present or those monitoring the target electronically will be unaware of the Charm. Their Telepathic Bond means they needn't stick around after a target has been acquired, merely re-unite with them every 24 hours. When forced to speak with non-converted personnel, their Deception +9 and Persuasion +9 will assuage most concerns.

Once a target has been Charmed, it will order the grounding of all aircraft under its jurisdiction - the commander-in-chief will ground the nation's entire air force. Since nukes are on the table, once the air force has been ordered to stand down, it will be destroyed piecemeal by Charming nuclear missile commanders into targeting air bases with the nation's own weaponry, or all at once by ordering a limited strike against a foreign power capable of responding with overwhelming destructive capacity of its own.

Kirt
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Preemptive note: I'm looking at this problem from a 5e perspective. It's quite possible that damage immunities or resistances differ between versions, so these suggestions might not all be 100% applicable to your situation.

Necessary damage immunities/resistances

First off, modern weapons have so much firepower that you absolutely need immunity to what I'll call "physical" damage (= bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, though mostly the former two). As modern armies don't enchant their weapons or ammunition (as far as I'm aware ^^), immunity to just non-magical physical damage is sufficient.

On top of that, both fire (explosions, flamethrowers, napalm, ...) and poison attacks (chemical and biological weapons) are likely within the arsenal of modern armies, even if they're less abundant than simple bullets (which would be covered by the physical immunity I mentioned above). Therefore, I would say that whatever monster you pick needs at least some kind of resistance or immunity against one or both of these.

I'm not sure what kind of damage nukes would inflict, but fire is probably a safe bet. Other than that, probably thunder for the blast wave, and I'm not sure what the radiation would count as; poison/radiant/necrotic? Either way, there are likely no monsters completely immune to nukes (especially the thunder part, as it's normally a pretty rare damage type), hence teleportation across vast distances or planes is a huge plus, so you don't have to tank the nuke's damage.

Disclaimer

With all that established, do note that not all of the following monsters are necessarily tamable, controllable, or otherwise subjugatable. For those that are not, you might need some house-ruling to explain why they're helping.

Furthermore, most of these creatures are at least mid-level, because with how destructive modern weapons are, CR1 creatures just won't cut it, unless they had all the right immunities - but there's just no such low-level creature.


List of options

If you're looking for mid-level creatures, then the Steel Predator is probably a good bet. It's immune to both physical and poison damage, and while it has no additional protection against fire, it does sport fairly decent armor and HP, can teleport and is overall pretty capable. Unfortunately, they're designed as assassins that normally focus on taking out individual targets (though potentially killing lots of others that are in the way) and return to their creators afterward. Thus, you'd need to get those creators on board, to make them "reusable", so to speak; or you do just use them to take out individuals, such as high-ranking generals, the president, etc.

With varying levels of strength, devils of all levels (including lords) are also an option, as they all have immunity to both poison and fire. Unfortunately, they (including lords) only have resistance against physical damage, not immunity, which means you will need a lot of them. Regular non-lord demons are also an option, although they only have fire resistance instead of immunity.

Following up on this, a very strong all-around troop are demon lords. They are all immune to physical and poison damage and they have resistance to fire (as well as lightning, which armies would probably also be capable of inflicting somehow, although with more difficulty than fire or poison). Some of them are also capable of flight and being high-CR creatures, they all have very powerful abilities. On top of that, you can canonically control them if you get your hands on their demonic amulet (MToF, p. 26) - not that that's particularly easy.

Another option are Iron Golems, which have immunities to fire, poison, and non-adamantine physical damage. They're also easily controlled, though far from easily acquired. Weaker golems are also an option, but they lack fire immunity.

At higher levels, Liches (and to a lesser extent Demiliches) are also always a good option, due to physical and (thanks to their undead nature) poison immunities, as well as very strong and versatile abilities due to being a spellcaster. They're also pretty much impossible to kill because they can just park their phylactery on a demiplane, which armies simply have no way of accessing without magic.
Note: their stat block in the MM doesn't include the Fly spell, but I think it's safe to say that a Lich would know how to cast such a useful third-level spell. More specifically, one would expect a Lich to have all major/common wizard spells in existance in their repertoire, preparing spells as necessary to fight an Air Force.

Similar to liches, undead in general are not the worst option.
Mummy lords are strong if you can grant them immunity to fire to overrule their vulnerability to it (the Investiture of Flame spell springs to mind, but it's self-only and not on the Mummy Lord's spell list).
Flame skulls only have fire/poison immunity and piercing resistance, but can wreak havoc with fireballs.
Many other undead are also somewhat useful, such as ghostly undead, which usually have useful resistances, if not immunities.

Your ultimate option for destroying outposts, bases, and other immobile targets is likely the Tarrasque. Naturally, that's not something one can normally control, but it sports immunity to physical, fire, and poison damage, on top of being an extremely tanky and destructive CR30 monster.


Conclusion

Overall, I would say that Demon Lords, ideally with magic items to counteract their shortcomings, are your best bet. Namely, Orcus can fly and is otherwise rather strong, though he lacks a native teleportation ability to escape nukes. Other demon lords can be similarly buffed with magic items to grant them flight or other abilities. Conveniently, there's also a canonical way of controlling them, in the form of demonic amulets.

Almost equally as strong are Liches. Unfortunately, you'll probably have a hard time convincing one (much less multiple) of fighting for you, barring DM intervention.

Either of these should also be able to summon or otherwise accumulate allies in some capacity (demons or undead, respectively).

PixelMaster
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  • Do Depleted Uranium Shells not do radiation damage? Do HE tank shells not do also Fire damage? Does any creature have Immunity "nuclear"? – Trish Feb 14 '22 at 05:39
  • @Trish 5e has a finite list of damage types, so it's unclear if nuclear would be untyped or folded into something else, like radiant or necrotic. –  Feb 14 '22 at 07:35
  • @Trish as I discussed in my answer and as Non-Human Person mentioned, it's not clear what the damage type of radiation would be. Considering its effects on the body, poison or necrotic are probably the closest, and neither are terribly rare as immunities/resistances. Orcus, for instance, has both immunities, being the demon lord of undeath. If you declare radiation as untyped damage, then trying to survive nukes is obviously even less of an option, increasing the need for teleportation. – PixelMaster Feb 14 '22 at 09:02
  • Where do you base 5e on? – Trish Feb 14 '22 at 10:33
  • @Trish nothing in particular, but if I want to pick creatures based on immunities/resistances, then I have to pick an edition, and I have by far the most experience with 5e. Besides, chances are it's probably the edition OP is playing, and if not, it will likely help the largest % of other readers (compared to if I based it on, for example, AD&D). – PixelMaster Feb 14 '22 at 20:15
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The speed of sound is 6750 feet per 6 seconds, and no D&D creature is capable of anything close to that. Dragons, for example, have a fly speed of 80ft in 5e (meaning they could dash to get 160ft).

Aircraft prefer to fly around 35000 feet, which is higher than most creatures can breathe. It's also higher than most creatures could reasonably ascend in response to an attack. If a creature saw an incoming aircraft and wished to fly up to fight it, and if the lack of oxygen were not a problem, it would take 218 rounds (21 minutes) to climb that high at 160 feet per round.

It is simply not practical for any creature to engage with an aircraft using its movement speed.

Invisibility

There are various ways for creatures to avoid an aircraft's attacks. The best might be to have a spellcaster cast invisibility, turning the creature invisible for up to an hour. The DM will have to rule on whether this invisibility applies to radar systems as well as vision, but a favorable ruling seems at least plausible.

Unfortunately our invisible dragons (or spellcasters casting wall of force, or et cetera) still are not able to get within range of the enemy aircraft. They will have to content themselves with attacking aircraft that are on the ground. This may allow them to gradually reduce the enemy numbers.

Weather Control

The control weather spell allows a caster to call bad weather within a five-mile radius, which should be enough to defend an army with one casting.

Unfortunately planes appear to be immune to this. My google searches for [can planes fly in blizzards] and [can planes fly in gale force winds] return, simply, "yes".

Teleportation

If an army has casters, it might attempt to attack an aircraft using teleport. Unfortunately, attempting to teleport into the cockpit of an enemy plane would use the rules for teleporting somewhere you have "a description of", meaning only a 25% chance of actually getting there.

If we allow 3.5e rules, then casters can cast greater teleport, which does not have this failure chance. If not enough thirteenth-level casters are available, a mere CR5 bearded devil can teleport itself into a cockpit reliably. This will likely be sufficient to kill the pilots; if the pilots are leveled characters for some reason than a higher-level devil might be needed.

Planar Travel

If teleportation fails to deter the enemy, the attacking army might be reduced to simply hiding on another plane. The gate spell allows the army to deploy a large number of troops anywhere they choose; it's expensive, but if the modern army has fighter planes, we should expect the fantasy army to have a decent budget for material components. The creatures show up in military bases, or on airfields; they wreak havoc and then gate home, or else spread out into the countryside.

If the fantasy nation is on the same plane as the modern nation, they can still use gate to deploy their troops, but it's more expensive, because they have to gate to some other plane and then gate back to their destination.

Dan B
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  • as long as the plane is airborne and the caster has not snuck into the enemy airport to look into the cockpits from at least 15 feet off the ground, it is to assume that they have not seen the cockpit. – Trish Feb 14 '22 at 05:35
  • To have a description of the plane cockpit requires someone that has seen the cockpit once. Same problem. – Trish Feb 15 '22 at 15:15
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A few years ago, there were issues with geese flying into airplane engines. Enough so that we literally covered their eggs in oil to reduce their species numbers. If that isn't how you would take care of an dangerous enemy, I don't know what is.

The answer isn't necessarily what monster can be weaponized, but maybe, how can you overwhelm these very strong, yet delicate machines that are floating in the air at great speeds.

A swarm of {insert any vertebrate-flying creatures/or any creatures that could jam an engine, or flying metal creatures}

Maybe a creature that has corrosive blood or spray, so that even in death, the machines in the air would succumb to physics.

Kamikaze attacks were really popular within the last hundred years on earth, maybe in your realm it can be introduced if its not standard procedure.

Could two different types of monsters be used? Perhaps an Earth Elemental and (I'm pretty sure I've seen electric or lightning elemental stat block somewhere), they could essentially create super magnets (lodestone/iron and electric attacks to polarize/strengthen the metal/stone).

Just a thought. I know it isn't a specific answer, but it could lead you in a direction that you didn't consider before?

I LOVE technology, but for the reason of how easily they can get messed up, I'll always request a car with manual windows and locks. For whatever its worth, I hope your pilots have easy exits available :D

KorvinStarmast
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mnemonicon
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    For what it's worth, bird strike hazards have been a problem for the airline industry for as long as turbofan and turbojet engines have been in existence. (Your opening paragraph could use firming up; the infamous Hudson River landing is but one example of a large bird causing engine failure). – KorvinStarmast Feb 14 '22 at 14:25